About a year ago, real time, I did some database work to calculate the Hall of Fame Standards for our players. Alas, last October, my old computer crashed, wiping out the data.
I finally got around to installing SQL Server on my new laptop and decided to update the numbers.
For an explanation of how HOF Standards are calculated, feel free to look here. For the calculations, I used Bill James's defensive adjustments. The key thing to remember is that a score of 50 is the mark of an average Hall of Famer.
One thing you might notice is that the numbers for retired players may be different than last time. Unfortunately, I don't have the code to check whether or not I made a mistake in the previous calculations, but I ran over these with a sample player or two step by step to make sure they looked right.
To be included here, a player must have played 1000 games at the major league level. Players are listed by their primary position in the game (regardless of where they actually played).
So, how do our players rate?
Italics indicates player active in 2025.
Bold indicates a player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
CATCHERS (19 players)
The top 5 catchers are:
Herman Gossard (40)
Beau Manning (37)
Waylon Blassingame (36)
Richard Birbey (34)
Alberto Granado (30)
Interestingly, if you lower the bar to only 500 games, two active catchers jump to the top of the list:
Aaron Hampton (48)
Steve Jones (46)
Also, Brian Walker would come in at fifth place with 38.
FIRST BASE (14 players)
Luis Jeon (56)
Dong Lutz (55)
Gregorio Marzano (47)
Gregory Mudge (41)
Timothy Palacio (35)
SECOND BASE (12 players)
John Grondin (62)
Juan Melton (39)
Timothy Mendiola (38),
Winston Satterlee (30)
Bill Turek (27)
It's pretty clear that John Grondin is the greatest second baseman the league has ever seen. It's also pretty clear that there are very few good second basemen in general in the league. However, if the bar is lowered to 500 games, upcomers Gene Reynolds and Norman Kuhn jump to second and third on the list.
THIRD BASE (15 players)
John Hukill (72)
Ronald Quijada (63)
Andres Velasco (47)
George LaBarre (44)
Octavio Cabralles (43)
We are living in the Golden Age of third basemen. All five of the top third sackers are still active, including Hukill, who is the highest ranked player overall in the league. The top retired player? Eugene Alustiza, who comes in at seventh with 37.
SHORTSTOP (13 players)
Ricky Peppers (60)
Carmelo Deleon (41)
Richard Bender (35)
Lincoln Rosetti (33)
Jeff Wardlaw (32)
With the bar lowered to 500 games, two more active shortstops advance to the top of the list: Katsuhiko Jouda (44) and Rick Bryant (37)
LEFT FIELD (16 players)
Brian Frison (65)
Rufus Murray (51)
Christopher Moss (46)
Patrick Valdes (41)
Miguel Cuesta (34)
CENTER FIELD (17 players)
Sean Arant (42)
Michael Fay (40)
Monte Goss (32)
Armando Cedeno (28)
Lonnie Manchen (26)
The highest ranked active center fielder is Bas Bijkerk, way down in ninth at 21. If we include players with only 500 games, we only add one active player to the top 10 -- Angel Banuelos, who would be third with 34.
RIGHT FIELDER (7 players -- yep, only seven!)
Paul Shunk (48)
Patrick Welsh (32)
Raul Ortega (26)
Hal Pires (25)
Lowell Maclin (19)
Samuel Santos (8)
Tony Demiras (8)
Talk about a shocker -- I wonder if I go back and look... how many of us use left fields in right field? Obviously the answer is a lot of us if only seven right-fielders managed to play 1200 games or more. Shunk looks worthy and Welsh may be a borderline case, but that's about it.
Fortunately, there is relief on the way. After including players with at least 500 games played, Ray McJannett jumps to a tie for second on the list on the list (37, with the long-retired Roberto Casarez) and Lucio Muniz comes in fourth at 36.
ACROSS THE BOARD
Hukill (72)
Frison (65)
Quijada (63)
Grondin (62)
Peppers (60)
There are 105 position players who have played 1200 or more games in the majors since the league's inaugural year back in 2002. They rank from John Hukill (72) down to Jonathan Willet (5).
The average HOFs is 27.80
The median HOFs is 25
The standard deviation is 13.78
This places Hukill at 3.2 standard deviations above the mean. Five other players (the rest of the top five above and Jeon) are 2 or more SDs above the mean. Our two current Hall of Famers come in at .95 (Mudge) and .88 (Fay) SDs above the mean.
Want to see the complete list of 105 players? Feel free to look here.
Do you want to see another statistical analysis done? Just let me know what you want.
Zev
Awesome work, again, Zev.
ReplyDeleteNow, what are we going to do with this data? I really want to induct more players in the Hall of Fame. My take is that anyone over 50 on that list should be in, those over 45 probably should, and we can debate about (vote on?) those between 40-50.
I'll gladly spearhead this project.
I just went through the list you provided, Zev, and found three players who have been retired for at least three seasons and should be inducted ASAP (HOF score >45):
ReplyDelete1. Ricky Peppers (60)
2. Dong Lutz (55)
3. Christopher Moss (46)
There are quite a few players above 45 on HOF Score who are either still active, or more recently retired: Hukill, Frison, Quijada, Grondin, Jeon, Murry, Shunk, Velasco, Marzano, Labarre, and Cabrales.
As for eligible (by my metric -- retired for 3+ seasons), there are quite a few borderline players (35-45 HOF Score) worthy of discussion/voting:
1. Sean Arant (42)
2. Patrick Valdes (41)
3. Carmelo Deleon (41)
4. Herman Gossard (40)
5. Juan Melton (39)
6. Beau Manning (37)
7. Timothy Palacio (35)
And that's not even counting the pitchers...
I'm hoping to get to the pitchers in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteOf course, one question that has to be asked is, how many players (in terms of percentage of players who played) do you want in the Hall. Some people prefer a more restrictive Hall ( < 1%) while others prefer a more expansive ( 2-4 % or maybe even more).
I don't have the number of players who have played (all-time) in the majors handy at the moment (I'm currently not at home), but I can come up with that in the next post.
Good question. I think there are a lot of great players who were forgotten because of the strict auto-enrollment rules. I think, also, that we should populate the HOF with the best two-to-three players at each position for the next few seasons, until the league gets even more developed, and we get a better picture at how good, say, Gregory Mudge or John Grondin were/are.
ReplyDeleteWe're also not considering the players who were already 30+ when the league started in 2002 who had two-to-three great years before declining. A classic case is Joseph Denn, who hit 97 home runs in his first two seasons in the game, which were the first two ever in the league, and also his age 35 and 36 seasons. He started declining at age 37, and was done after 38. Who knows how good he would have been had he been 25 when starting, rather than 35? Shouldn't we consider "pioneers" like him for the Hall of Fame?
I don't have a strong opinion on this issue, but I tend to lean toward the expansive side rather than the restrictive side.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Martinez for HOF!! ;)
I definitely think we should induct more guys into the Hall of Fame.
ReplyDeleteIf we go forward, I'll post the WAR data I've got from the early years of the league, squirreled away in some old excel spreadsheets.
I definitely think we should induct more guys into the Hall of Fame.
ReplyDeleteIf we go forward, I'll post the WAR data I've got from the early years of the league, squirreled away in some old excel spreadsheets.